2023 Bronze Travel and Leisure

Entrant: Havas CX Helia

Agency: Havas CX Helia Cirencester

Client: Great Western Railway

Entry Title: Affordable ways to travel

Executive Summary

Since the pandemic, GWR had seen a drop in revenue generated from leisure travel. The agency was briefed to build a customer programme to help drive more incremental trips.

Strategy

GWR has built a strong brand firmly rooted in the charming aesthetic of the South West of England and Wales, promising adventure and discovery. But this took a back seat when the cost-of-living crisis began to unfold.

The base price of tickets couldn’t be reduced, but the team identified existing products that could provide savings of up to 67%: Advance fares, GroupSave, Family and Long Weekender tickets, plus Railcards.

These products were suffering from low awareness, but analysis showed 85% of parents were still looking for low-cost ways to keep their kids active and entertained, particularly during the school holidays.

Rather than communicate these savings as individual products, they could be united under a single, compelling umbrella.

Creativity

Using passenger data, the agency created different executions tailored to audience groups, to ensure fares and destinations promoted were relevant to the right passengers, at the right time.

It was important not to cheapen the brand while maintaining its sense of adventure. The campaign signposted smart ways to save, making customers feel GWR was helping them ‘hack’ train ticket pricing.

A distinctive badge was introduced to drive recognition of this affordability scheme. This lent creative freedom to dial it up or down depending on the purpose of the messaging. A dedicated communication called ‘Ways to save’ used the badge whenever qualifying fares or money-saving products were referenced.

Further money-saving hacks and GWR products were seeded across CRM and paid campaign activity, along with geo-targeted dynamic emails and a dedicated landing page to show families all they could experience across the network.

Results

The Affordable ways to travel programme has generated £2.31m with an ROI of 4:1.

GWR has seen an increase in total ticket transactions from the CRM base of 22.6% year on year, which equates to more than 3,500 additional trips every month—and an increase of 20.9% in CRM customers year on year.

There has also been greater uptake of the individual affordable products the campaign team set out to highlight. Affordable ways to travel is now an annual programme for GWR and plans to strengthen the offering for 2024 are under way.

The Team

GWR - Rachel Jefferies, Snr CRM Manager - Tom Saunders, CRM Marketing Executive - Chris Lund, Snr Regional Marketing Manager - Katie Axford, Regional Marketing Executive - Ruth Powell, Regional Marketing Manager - West Great Western Railway - Jo Hake, Marketing Manager

Havas CX Helia -Georgie Sykes, Account Director - Ed Harper Account Director - Khirsty Cater, Snr Account Manager - Laura Burnell, Snr Account Manager - Nadia Mkinsi, Planning Director - Jon McWee, Experience Lead - Tamarin Fraenkel, Design Lead - Ruan Milborrow, Content Lead - Phil Moore, Production Lead -Rhiannon Humphrey, Snr Art Director - Josh Suntharasivam, Creative Lead - Rosalind Hadley, Copywriter - Alice Hannam, Copywriter - Sean Evans, Copywriter - Grace Kinsey, Copywriter - Tim Moulsdale, Snr Graphic Designer - Jaz Rice, Graphic Designer - Jonathan Martin, Graphic Designer - Ashley Kursey, Graphic Designer - Alex Barnett, Motion Designer - Callum Batham, Jnr Designer - Chris Wright, Integrated Artworker - Lynne Smith, Proofreader - Mike Dee, Technology Operations Manager - Kirin Howard, Lead Systems Analyst - Paul Vellacot, Web Developer - Matt Gray, Developer - Robert Wright, Snr Data Engineer - Sarah Spearey, Data Engineer - Arthur Morris, Data Engineer - Russell Mcnally, Technology Apprentice - Ben Knight, Executive Creative Director

Contributors

The7stars and adam&eveDDB